


Powerless

by Davechicken



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 03:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10653654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: The sharp man is powerless.





	Powerless

The man with the sharp lines and sharper eyes is dangerous, but mostly to himself. Not at all to Kylo Ren. Perhaps to those faceless, endless streams of white and grey he is, but not to Kylo Ren.

In a way - and he doesn’t like this thought one bit - he reminds him of his so-called father: risen to the top of his chosen field of mediocrity through sheer bloody-mindedness. A juggernaut approach, stubborn and devoted to one ideal, whether that be ‘survive and fuck the rest’, or ‘progress and fuck the rest’. 

No doubt there’s skinned knees and stomped fingers in the wake of him, but what does it really matter? In years to come, no one will remember his name.

***

The rules and regulations he lives by are a distraction. There to whip the underlings into shape, and to give their overseers a sense of power. It’s a manufactured power, a structure set up to appease the smaller minds.

What use is a set of rules to someone who can bend the very laws of physics? What use is a dress-code to someone who can make you strip naked in the corridors? What benefit does a code of conduct provide when the Force could snap your neck before you finished your salute?

None.

The Force is the only real strength, and without it, the man is nothing.

Kylo would almost pity him, if he were capable of it. Such feelings are long since burned from his core. He does not need them. They serve no function.

***

Huge weapons that kill from afar are almost like cheating. Even if the Empire used them, even if Darth Vader used them. They are… _cheating_. Death from a star-system away, at the touch of a button, at the grumbling of a series of tubes and lights…

How can that compare? It isn’t real. Even if a billion - or nine billion - nine billion billion - lives are gone in a coup de grâce, an efficient use of time and resources… how is that truly a skill? It isn’t.

It’s stupid.

He hates it.

***

The sharp man with his sharp words will never understand. His dreams are of metal, not life. His thoughts are of rules, not freedom. His skills are all taught, not known. 

Kylo cannot understand what it is to be blind. He cannot comprehend a world without the Force. He cannot.

***

Lying in the cold, feeling his body eek heat like blood into the snow. Fire from burning, fire from freezing.

Fitting, for a man torn between the Light and the Dark. Balanced here on the edge, too much of a fulcrum to ever fall either way. 

Failed. He’d failed. He was a failure, and he would die, here. Cold, alone, unmanned, unmade. The legacy that was his grandfather’s blade, passed like a blazing baton to a child’s hand.

How right that even his family should disown him.

Kylo feels the Force grow fainter, but it isn’t, is it? He is. He is fainter, and instead of being embraced by it, he is turned aside. Shunned. He will become that which he hates the most, just before he perishes: Force-less, and incomplete.

His eyes close, and he feels the snow vibrate. His eyes open, and see the sharp lines.

Worry on the other’s face. Anger, disgust, self-loathing, fear, concern. Why does he worry? This would be his moment. 

“Ren… the planet is going to blow. Can you stand?”  


He can’t, but he tries, anyway. 

A knee hits the snow, and a shoulder under his arm. Funny, he never expected the General would get his hands dirty in any way.

“How did you find me?” he rasps, as he’s lifted.  


“I put a tracker on your belt.”  


“Why?”  


“Had a feeling I’d need to come save your ass some day.”  


Force-less, but not… without power. Kylo feels oddly humbled by this workaround. In Hux’s place, without the Force, would he have had the foresight? Would he have managed the same?

He’s lifted, and his legs drag as the man - somehow - pulls him into safety. 

“I didn’t know you cared,” he mumbles, as he’s helped into a prone position.  


“I don’t, the Leader told me to get you.”  


“But the tracker…”  


Something. Something not so sharp. Something… and then it’s gone.

“I knew you’d need me. That’s all.”  


Kylo realises he knows nothing at all about this man, and it’s humbling. He wants to reach a hand, to touch, to thank, to… something. He’s in so much pain, and he doesn’t know if it’s just delirium talking. 

“You saved me.”  


“Someone had to.”  



End file.
